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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Culture Day at Meiji Jingu

November 3 is Japan Culture Day and the best place to celebrate it is at Meiji Jingu.

So we decided to join the other several thousand Tokyoites and venture out.

Meiji Jingu is an extraordinary park/garden/shrine in Harajuku/Shibuya. When the shrine was built in the early 1900s, 100,000 thousand trees were donated from all over the world to create this natural setting in the center of Tokyo.

There were lots of people but it is such a large site that we never felt crowded. The shrine commemorates Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The Chrysanthemum Festival was just ending so there were still displays to see -

This one was a miniature village with chrysanthemums used to depict trees.

And many families were there with the children dressed in traditional garb. Very "kawaii" :-)

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Suidobashi Station

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Robert Coburn is a composer and sound artist. During the 2011-12 year he lived in Japan on a Fulbright Scholars award. He is a faculty member at the Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, where he directs the Composition Program.